January 26, 2021
With the Super Bowl coming up next for the NFL, I thought it would be a good time to comment on the Canadian Football League (CFL)
If you don’t already know, I am a big CFL fan. I welcome the spring training camps and look forward to all the games during the summer and fall. We would organize our camping trips and holidays around the home game schedule.
Being born and raised in Calgary, my team is the Stampeders. I have had season tickets for the Calgary Stampeders for about 10 years now. I am not sure why, but I have never really been a big NFL football fan – I just like the Canadian game and I am proud of it. Maybe its part of what makes us Canadian (#6 from my Introduction Blog)
Desired differentiation - If there’s one not-so-nice quality many Canadians share, it’s an almost passive-aggressive need to be known as distinctly not American – especially in our travels abroad.
For me, the definition of being Canadian football fan is to attend the Grey Cup Festival each year in November. I have been attending the festivities religiously since 2014 and sporadically before then. Of course, if your team is in the game, it just makes it that much better.
Searching the Googily, I was trying to explain what the Grey Cup is all about. I found a quote from Henry Burris. Henry (Hank) Burris was an all-star quarterback for the Stamps from 2005 to 2011. He was then traded and ended up in Ottawa where he finished his career. I actually met Hank in Ottawa when they hosted the 2017 Grey Cup. He was working for a local radio station. He has been quoted as saying……..
“To me, the CFL game is a mirror of what our great country is all about. We are people that don’t ask for a lot. All we want is love, all we want is something that we can have a passion for and all we want to do is to enjoy life together.
“That’s why we come together once a year to celebrate what to me is the greatest game on the planet. To see people coming from coast to coast, wearing their different colours and cheering on their teams, simply just to get together with friends, just coming out and enjoying this once-a-year event.”
It is tough to describe the feeling you get when you attend the Grey Cup and you really need to attend to get the full experience. It’s just too Canadian. I love the Grey Cup so much that in 2015, I joined the Calgary Grey Cup Committee. This group promotes Calgary and the Calgary Stampede through Western Hospitality at the Grey Cup Festival. Lot of pancake breakfasts, media events and of course riding “Tuffy” (the Grey Cup Horse) through the lobby of our hotel.
The Grey Cup in 2020 was to be held in Regina – unfortunately, it was cancelled do to Covid. I’m not sure what it would have been like, but the Saskatchewan Roughrider fans are “cray-cray”. Vulcans are not the only race with green blood 😊. It’s OK though, they will get another shot in 2022 – if the league survives.
This brings me to the reason for this post. I really hope that the CFL can survives. The league is built on a different business model than the NFL and rely heavily on gate and fan revenue. With no games taking place there is no revenue. I know they asked the federal government for some funds, but their request was rejected. I am ok with that – fundamentally it is not the governments’ job to bail out private business.
The league has announced the schedule for 2021. This is a hopeful sign. With the Covid vaccines coming on board, I am excited that there may be a season in 2021 – time will tell. I am not sure what the league will look like or how many teams will survive this, but we can not let this Canadian game fail. What would happen to all the university football which is a major contributor of players to the CFL? Working backwards – does this then affect all the high school and junior football teams?
I watched the NFL conference finals last weekend from Green Bay and noticed that there were fans in the stands. I think they said there was about 8500 people there. The total capacity is about 81,000, so there were about 10% capacity. Why can’t the CFL do something similar. 10%-15% capacity. Something is better than nothing. The teams might be able to limp along until the vaccines kick in. I think this 15% number aligns with what the governments are saying with regards to “gatherings”. The rules keep changing so not really sure where we are with that and it is different in each region as this is a provincial jurisdiction.
My hope is that something can be worked out. The CFL really is a Canadian institution that needs our support.
That’s is for now. Let’s hear what you have to say.
Ronco 😊
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